1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to clothes hangers and, more particularly, to a clothes hanger having a storable hook.
2. Description of Related Art
Many garments, such as sweaters and other knitted clothes, will take on the shape of the clothes hangers from which they are suspended. This problem is particularly acute when clothes hangers are short and thin, and is evidenced by "points" on the shoulder areas of the garments after being suspended from these hangers. To overcome this deficiency, a number of "wide body" clothes hangers, typically formed of either wood or plastic, characterized by an increased length and/or a widened surface area from which the garment is suspended have been developed.
A conventional wide body clothes hanger is typically inserted through a neck opening of a garment and into shoulder areas thereof. The garment is then suspended from the hanger with the hanger extending between the shoulder areas and a hook portion of the hanger extending upwardly through the neck opening. For this reason, such clothes hangers are often shaped so that they resemble human shoulders.
Most clothes hangers have hooks which have a fixed position. Such a hook is typically aligned with the hanger body and is effective, for example, in hanging the garment on a rod in a closet. With the hook positioned centrally between the hanger's shoulder portions, the neck opening of the garment limits the length of the hanger's shoulder portions, since each of the shoulder portions must be inserted through the neck opening.
A problem is experienced when clothes hangers are used to hang crew neck sweaters or clothes having non-expandable neck openings. To hang the clothes, the hanger is held at an angle and a first end inserted through the neck opening and into one shoulder area of the garment until the hook stops forward movement of the hanger. The second end is then inserted into the other shoulder area. However, to fit the second end through the neck opening, the neck opening often has to be expanded. For buttoned shirts and other clothes having expandable neck openings, this is not a problem. For crew neck sweaters, the neck opening has to be undesirably stretched, and for clothes with non-expandable neck openings, it cannot be done. If the hook was storable, the reduced clearance needed for insertion of the hanger would allow the entire hanger to be inserted into the neck opening, thereby eliminating the need to stretch the neck opening.
Some people prefer to hang clothes by inserting the hanger into the opening at the bottom of the garment and bringing it up to the shoulder areas. Again, the presence of the hook makes this type of hanging difficult because of the ease with which the hook is snagged on the clothes. Again, a storable hook would eliminate this problem.
The hook also makes hangers very difficult to store or to pack in suitcases. A storable hook would make the task of storing hangers much easier.
Some clothes hangers are known in the art which have hooks that are not rigidly fixed. For example, the following U.S. patents disclose hangers having hooks which rotate about an axis longitudinally aligned with the hangers' shoulder portions: U.S. Pat. No. 2,428,820 to Therrien, U.S. Pat. No. 1,551,769 to Paddington, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,154 to Atkins. The following U.S. patents disclose hangers having hooks which rotate about a vertical axis: U.S. Pat. No. 4,074,838 to Blasnik et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,963,154 to Schwartz et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,445 to Chen, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,465,576 to Colburn. The following U.S. patents disclose hangers having hooks which rotate about a horizontal axis orthogonal to the hangers' shoulder portions: U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,082 to Cohen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,445 to Chen, and U.S. Pat. No. D210,259 to Holtzman.
Hook rotation about the vertical axis enables a clothes hanger to be hooked over a surface which is aligned with the hanger shoulder portions, such as a door or back of a chair, permitting the garment to lay flat adjacent the door or chair back, etc. Hook rotation about a horizontal axis enables the hook to be stored proximate the hanger's body portion.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that it would be quite desirable to provide a clothes hanger which has a length which is not limited by the garment's neck opening, but which has relatively long and smoothly contoured shoulder portions. It would also be quite desirable to provide a clothes hanger having a hook which is rotatable about a vertical and a horizontal axis. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide such a clothes hanger.